Dr. Julia Espe, Executive Director of Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment, presented information on a Race to the Top reform effort coming from the federal level that equates to $4.35 billion dollars worth of funding to encourage and reward conditions for education innovation and reform, achieving significant improvement, making academic gains, closing gaps, improving graduation rates, or student preparation for college. Funding will be awarded to states, and each state is to come up with a plan; it will be a competitive grant that will or won’t be received as a state. The State of Minnesota is currently in the process of collecting input from various entities, including school districts.
The core education reform areas they are looking for are: internationally bench-marked standards and assessments to prepare students for post secondary education; recruiting, developing, retaining and rewarding effective teachers and principals; building data systems to measure student success and inform teachers; and turning around lowest performing schools.
There are nineteen selection criteria for states to address when submitting their applications. Dr. Espe stated that we participated as a District in some input sessions, and most of the input we gave was to look for some more system-wide resources for our District. Districts are asked to forward ideas, comments, and/or questions to the Minnesota Department of Education via their website.
The MDE will be drafting the letter for the entire State, and School Boards and Teachers Associations will be asked to jointly sign the letter if Districts are interested in pursuing this funding. Board Members indicated that after a review of the letter, they would be interested in pursuing. Dr. Espe will meet with the St. Cloud Education Association to seek their support in signing the letter. She reiterated that signing the letter does not bind the District in any way.
The deadline to submit the letter is November 30th.
